Okay, so second time around, we will see if I make it to the end this time. Maybe I should upload the picture now before I type away and lose my work. That might be smart, maybe.
Okay the picture is in and no failures yet but we’ll see. You’re going to have to spare a few minutes to read this long one…sorry.
So, lately I’ve been having an on going conversation with God discussing matters of my life. I feel like I’m up and doing and all around, all in the matter of moments. Here are few examples.
June of ’03
– Graduate high school.
August of ’03
– Go to the Mission (Christian College/Ministry)
October of ’03
– Be careful what you pray for. I was in chapel pouring my heart out to God and I felt Him ask me if I really trusted him with all details of my life. I said, “God! Of course I trust You!” And then realized that was lie. I did trust Him…somewhat. But in my life trust is a very scary thing and not given out lightly so even though I knew He was God, I was still hesitiant. Well, you can’t lie to God so I changed my tune and told Him that if He wanted me to full all and out trust Him, then He would have to take me to that cliff and push me off so that I had no choice but to trust Him. And that was it, no big tears, no huge revelation, just a small convo. with me and my Lord. And then….15 minutes later I decide I should call home see how my Mom’s doing. I call, my step-father answers the phone and sounds really funny as he tells me that my Mother isn’t there, she was at my brothers, he thought. I know something is up by now, so I call my brothers and my Mom not so gently drops the news that she is leaving my Step-Dad for good this time. Not a good day. Be Careful what you pray for. Then a montage of different things happen with this one decision. My Mom moves, so that means my home is moving. I went to college and never returned back to my home, my Mom moves into a one bedroom apartment that is really tiny so for awhile when I was back home I had to sleep on the floor and then on a fouton in the dining room. It wasn’t that bad but it was just stuff that had me going, “What in the world, God?”
March of ’04
– Things are still much of the same. School was great but home was horrible, my Mom was a different person now it seemed. The strong Christian woman who raised me to be the way I am today wasn’t there anymore. She was burned by ‘church’ and wouldn’t go back, at least not yet anyway. This rocked my foundation of my beliefs. She was a pillar of faith in my life and to see her like this messed with my mind. Needless to say taking a year off of college to come live at home with her was not something I wanted to do at all. I had it all planned, I loved the Mission, I would come back and do a second year and things would be great. That was until I found out there wasn’t going to be a Mission to come back to. Upside down went my world again. But I had no choice but to trust that God would put me in the place He wanted. At the last minute a door opened and I ran and ended up in another Mission in Baltimore.
August 0f ’04
– I’m in Baltimore starting the Mission again. Stuff at home is still messed up, Mom still isn’t who she used to be, I can’t figure out whether my step-dad really wants a relationship with me or just wants to get at my Mom. The Mission I knew the year before is nothing like the place I am. THere are constant battles to war against. It was Christian program and I do believe more than half of the students attending were not saved. It seemed climbing every mountain there was just another one to climb and we were struggling to survive. And that is how it stayed the entire year. But for some reason (God) I stay on for another year.
August of ’05
– I finally realize that the hurt, pain, bitterness, anger, and unresolution I hold towards my real Father is pointless and I need to get to the point of letting it go. (For those of you who don’t know, my real Father left my family when I was only 2 months old, I never meet him.) I make a promise that if I don’t find him by the end of the year then I will let it go, never look again, and really let go all these things holding me back. I knew I had to really do this, I was never going to be able to go farther in my walk with God unless I let it go.
End of ’05
– The end of the year came and after search after search I was no where closer to finding him. So, I let it go. And surprisingly enough I really did it. Sure, anytime there is wound when it is healed there is still a scar but it doesn’t hurt unless you really push on it. And that is where I was, not having a Father is not something you can ever forget but I was really not hurting so deeply about it anymore. I felt God knew what He was doing and He wasn’t choosing for me to meet him.
End of January ’06
– God works in funny ways. My sister-in-laws Father dies and he happened to live in the same town as my Father’s last known address. It crossed my mind that maybe when they went for the funeral I could go with them to look for my Dad. I had never had the oppurtunity to go to Wisconsin before. But as fast as that thought came I prayed and told God that if somehow that was something He wanted me to do that my brother would have to call me and say that exactly. Well 5 minutes later my phone rang and it was him saying just that. So, I packed my bags. (To make a very very long story short, sorry I know this whole thing isn’t short) That morning I wake up and I’m talking to God and I know that I know I hear him say I will find my Dad that day but I was afraid it was just my mind saying that because I wished for it so mcuh. After much looking and many dead ends, I do obtain a maybe current phone number for my Dad. But we don’t know if it’s right or not. It’s almost midnight and my brother doesn’t want to spend money on another hotel room, he wants to leave right now and head for home. We stop for some late night pizza before we hit the highway. I call the number, no answer, no voice mail. I call again, same thing. And again, same thing. Everyone tells me to give up but I just knew what God told me so I just couldn’t but I was getting frustrated on the fact that it was almost midnight and I hadn’t found him. So I call once more and he answers! I question him about 4 or 5 times asking if it was really Jim Hintz and then I finally believe and almost fall out in the pizza shop, then I tell him who it is and I think he almost fell out. But things went well, we stayed longer and meet up with him the next day and stayed at his house for 2 more days. Praise the LORD!
Febuary of ’06
– My Mom up and moves to Florida. My hometown is Bedford, Pennsylvania, I go to school in Baltimore, Maryland. Florida is really far away. So, I no longer really had a home. I was at college so I had somewhere to live but not a home to go home to. There is no failing for me because leaving is not an option when homelessness is what you have to go to. This is scary. Maybe I’m just baby but it was and is really hard to deal with sometimes. I guess I need to grow up more but I’m 21 and sometimes I would really like to just take some time and go back and visit my Mom, sleep in my old bed and just relax but she moved so I can’t. And I can’t live with her in Florida because she lives with my Grandmother and she doesn’t want me there. I know…I know…I just need to grow up and get over it but it’s hard.
April of ’06
– This is the hardest to write about. With everything so unresloved and me not knowing where my feelings for my now Ex-Step-Dad he gets really sick. I saw him twice while he was in nursing homes and each time he was a little out of it and kept falling asleep in the middle of the sentences so I couldn’t make real closure with him. Then I got the call that it would be any minute now that he could pass away and I raced home to Bedford. I made it thankfully. But he really wasn’t in his mind anymore but when he did see me he still knew my name and said he loved me but he said alot of other stuff too so it was hard. The next morning I took my sister back with me to see him again and then he died 2 hours later. We like to think that maybe he was able to go then b/c he finally saw all of his “kids”, his real kids and us fake ones but I don’t know if he even knew we were there. I never knew death was this hard to deal with. My heart goes out to anyone who has ever lost an immediate family member, he was only my step-dad who I had issues with and it still hurts everyday. It was 1 year on the 19th of April, not a good day.
November of ’06
– My real father for reasons unknown decides he should move from Wisconsin to my hometown in Pennsylvania. Now, granted, I did want a relationship with him, I found him, I wanted it. But I never ever thought he would move to my home. I was happy with cards in the mail and the occassional call. You know, just enough of a relationship to say I have a Dad but not enough of one where I had to be vulnerable. I’m dealing with him being there and so far everyting is fine but it still messes with my mind sometimes. My Mom is gone and he is there, my step-dad has died and my real dad is there. It’s just very weird. Growing up not having a Dad at all really to having one in the other room is just weird. But he still will never be “Daddy Daddy” and I’m never going to be “Daddy’s little girl” because I’m not a little girl anymore, he missed that time and you cant make up for that. So, living in the land of ‘if-onlys’ were much easier then living and dealing with reality. I love him and care about him and he is my biological father and I think to some degree he loves me, he says so at least, but he’s not a Daddy, he’s hardly a Dad. He left us once when we desperately needed him, now my sister is married, my brother is married, and I have all my plans, we’re good without him, if he could leave when we needed him, how much easier will it be to disappear again when we don’t need him. What’s that saying?…Any guy can be a Father but it takes a real man to be a Dad.
So to sum it all up….Graduate High School, Go to College, Parents get Divorce, The Mission fails have to go to a new one, finds my real Dad, Mom moves away, Step-Dad dies, Real Dad moves to hometown. It has been on crazy ride, and now I’m going to Africa! Up and down and all around. And what have I learned? I told God to push me off the cliff, well He did but for awhile I was holding onto the edge with my fingernails because I was still too scared. But now I’m going…freefalling with trust in God. So life might a rollercoaster and you may feel like you have a blindfold on but when God is laying down the tract you know it’s gonna be alright.
